Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner

May, 2013

Ah, new words. This one, in an article online: My comment: seeking connectedness through twitter and so forth: It’s not a religion. It’s just the latest intoxicant. Think of it, having followers! wow! Not that it doesn’t have a function. I acknowledge this: But now the electronic media has figured out a way to get […]

Just to spread the word: the Executive Committee of the Australia & Aotearoa-New Zealand Psychodrama Association recently decided that in line with our strategic priority that psychodrama be valued and more widely known, all AANZPA journal articles be available for free general access online. All Journal articles are now publicly available from the AANZPA website. […]

A recent book by John Holt is titled, Why Does the World Exist? (New York: Liveright / Norton.) It occurred to me that the basis for this book, reasoned argumentation that forms the foundation of modern philosophy, is based on the assumption that there must be a rational explanation. To the contrary: It’s an aesthetic […]

I’ve been enjoying an exchange with some friends about current arguments relating to the possibilities that computers will reach the point of consciousness. I doubt this for the following reason: The whole enterprise hinges on a deep misunderstanding of the mind as rational, logical, and therefore reproducible via algorithms of sufficient complexity. But this is […]

Returned last week from my medical school reunion. A fascinatingly rich experience on many levels, and I’m still sorting it all out. One part involved my awareness that more than most groups, this was my social reference group, the people whom I measured myself against. That is, as a young man, I realize now I’d […]

In the last half century humanity as extended itself tenfold (at least) in many directions: We now know there are many galaxies orders of magnitude in numbers and distance beyond what we knew before (thanks to Hubble-like telescopes); and realms of atomic interactions more subtle and complex than we knew before, with theories involving orders […]

I confess that reading postmodernist tracts is confusing and annoying—they assume the readers know their jargon. If that were true, they are truly preaching to the choir, as the saying goes. Still and all, there are some new words that I’ve found to be useful, valid, and worth spreading the word about. Logocentric: This word […]

A friend asked me—he having studied entomology— “Pheremones play a role in attracting males and females in some animals, it seems. How much attraction is there for people at this level and does it override thought processes when two people meet and form a first impression? I responded: Great question. We so don’t know! […]

When I was young and watching television before there were blogs to eat up my time, they had these infomercials that advertised kitchen gadgets. Their enthusiastic pronouncements (as the title of this piece suggests) reminds me that psychodrama might well be thought of as a complex of ideas and techniques that can be creatively applied […]

Talking with a friend about sex roles in contemporary culture, what occurs to me is that at least in part what is at issue is the way big business in collaboration with the fashionistas in advertising continue to promote certain ideals about what is sexually desirable, in body form, cosmetics, hairdo, fashions, and so forth. […]